GuavaLabs takes flight with Acro Yoga

This weekend the GuavaLabs studio was transformed into a fun and collaborative space for a class that was a little bit different. Through a series of impressive holds, balancing acts and even some attempted flips, myself and a number of intrigued GuavaPass members were instructed through an hour and a half of AcroYoga. The practice is a combination of acrobatics, yoga and therapeuticThaimassage. FrankLandgraf has been teaching, practicing and continuously learning about Acro Yoga for the past 15 years, tapping into his background in contemporary dance, acrobatics, and athletics to expand his range of poses. From his home city of Shanghai to locations around the world, he is on a mission to help lead the acrobaticmovement and educate each city he visits about this inspirational and dynamic practice. The workshop was a great chance to try things I only dared to as a child, with the added benefit of a fantastic workout and stretch session.

Acro Yoga’s range of benefits including improvements in posture, coordination, corestability and flexibility. It has resulted in the practice evolving into an innovative style of exercise. In today’s class, Frank was assisted by yoga instructor Kimberly who together created a series of fantastic and impressive moves across both disciplines. As it’s primarily a 2-person (or more) activity, the class partnered up and were shown a range of the foundation moves for acrobatics. Almost all of the moves taught were the building blocks of positions seen in international acrobatic productions like CirqueDu Soleil.

After careful instruction, the class then started to throw their partners into positions where entire bodies were balancing on top of another. Between bursting into laughter, and attempting new variations of a complex holds, we all forgot the fantastic workout we were getting for our core, legs and arms. Frank said from the beginning of the class “every move is possible if you think you can do it” and there was no truer fact as members balanced their partner on the balls of their feet in a floating, human seat position.

The GuavaLabs Acro Yoga class was a fantastic event for the exploration of strength, flexibility and balance in yourself and your partner. GuavaLabs holds a number of feature classes taught by a huge range of instructors from studios across the GuavaPass community. Today, we were fortunate to have Frank come in to teach the only workshop he is teaching whilst in Singapore, giving us an insightful look into the impressive and complex practice of Acro Yoga.

#GuavaTip: After Frank’s first Acro Yoga class 15 years ago he was “addicted” to the amazing movements involved in the practice, and has been travelling the world completing intense acrobaticworkshops since, with most lasting 8 hours a day for 7 days a week over 2 weeks at one time.

GuavaLabs takes flight with Acro Yoga was last modified: November 30th, 2016 by Laura Fitzpatrick